The Sonnet

Question 1

Fuller - the essence…

Answer 1

‘the essence of the sonnet form is the unequal relationship between octave and sestet’

Question 2

Fuller - sonnet progression, Petrarchan

Answer 2

‘the logical basis of the form, that the first quatrain states a proposition and the second proves it, that the first tercet confirms it and the second draws the conclusion’
Move to tercet ‘violates musical pace’ and ‘urges the sonnet to a decisive conclusion’

Question 3

Fuller - English sonnet

Answer 3

‘the couplet makes the English sonnet seem particularly summary or epigrammatic’
‘the philosophical turn…often the saving grace of these sonnets’

Question 4

Matthews

Answer 4

‘the sonnet’s fixity of form pins it closely to the social conditions out of which it developed…suggests some overt and rigid contradiction in contemporary society of which it was the appropriate artistic resolution’
‘individual love was habitually opposed to the social structure, and it is this antithesis that lies at the heart of the sonnet’
‘illicit passion….prescribed etiquette’
‘these two forces interlock rather than changing in the sonnet’

Question 5

Evans

Answer 5

‘the frustrations and the fulfillment of passion have been the two great subjects of love poetry’

Question 6

Tyler

Answer 6

‘little stages for acting out irreconcilable oppositions and making sense of them’